Congratulations on clearing up the story
about Rep. Dan Burton “doctoring the tapes” of Webster Hubbell and his
wife. By having the Burton committee’s chief investigator, David Bossie, on
your Sunday talk show, you did what the rest of the press corps failed to do
in presenting the complete sequence of events. A week ago in this space, I
wrote a defense of Burton when I still had only part of the information and a
surmise about the rest. It seemed obvious to me as an objective
observer who has scrupulously avoided comment on all aspects of these
investigations that there was and could not have been malicious
intent on part of Burton in releasing the transcript in edited form. For
Governor Roy Romer of Colorado, the chairman of the Democratic National
Committee, to then come on your show to rant and rave about Republican
“McCarthyism” while smearing a general accusation that Bossie “lied” in the
previous segment was in itself the essence of “McCarthyism.” Because I have
previously expressed admiration and respect for Romer, I have to assume that
his fulminations were based on his reading of the press accounts -- especially
last week’s NYTimes column by Anthony Lewis that equated Burton with
“slime” and the “depths of degradation.” Romer obviously made no attempt to
find out what really happened -- nor should we expect the DNC chairman to try
to be fair when he has been given an opening to take a partisan shot at the
GOP, as cheap as it was. If you saw "FoxNewsSunday" with Tony Snow, you must
have noted how Rep. John Conyers got all tangled up because he thought “the
tapes had been doctored,” confessing that all he knew was what he read in the
papers.

What I learned from Bossie confirms my
surmise -- that the transcript was edited innocently, with the sole purpose of
elevating the remarks of the Hubbells that were relevant to his indictment.
This is what “editing” is supposed to do. The only way there could have been
malicious intent on the part of Burton or his committee is if the complete
tape of the conversation were not readily available. In fact, at the same time
the committee released the edited transcript, it released the complete tape.
Clearly there was no “doctoring” of either the tape or the transcript by
Burton, Bossie or the committee staff. I also learned from Bossie on your show
that an earlier tape, “Number 35,” had been released to the media last year,
which contained the same Hubbell “exculpatory” remark about Hillary Clinton
that was edited out of the new transcript of tape “Number 5" by the Burton
committee two weeks ago. Bossie correctly pointed out on your show that the
press corps chose to ignore Hubbell’s remark in tape 35, but made a big deal
out of it in tape 5. It makes perfect sense to me that Burton approved the
release of the edited version “innocent” of any attempt to mislead. When
Bossie says Burton never listened to the tape or saw an unedited transcript,
but released it on the say-so of this staff, I also assume this to be the
absolute truth, for it makes no sense that Burton would have the time to go
over any part of 600 taped Hubbell conversations. It is the White House
spinmeisters who have gotten away with making it appear that Burton did
something reprehensible. They could not have done so if members of the press
corps were doing their job.

In my memo last week to Anthony Lewis of
the NYT, I said it appeared to me that he had committed a “technical
foul” in draping Burton with his charge of “slime” and “degradation.” I posted
Tony’s response -- wherein he said if I could believe Burton’s was “innocent,”
I could believe anything. I append these memos and my rejoinder to Tony. I’ll
also send this file along to Roy Romer and Newt Gingrich, who I think did a
disservice to Burton by assuming he had done something wrong and
tongue-lashing him in the GOP conference. I’m afraid Newt was burned by the
White House spinners so badly in the 104th Congress that he still treats them
with respect they do not deserve. Remember, Cokie, I spent most of my life as
a Democrat, and was old enough to appreciate the evils of genuine McCarthyism.
It disgusts me to see Democrats so casually toss around charges of
“McCarthyism” or “Hitlerism,” especially when I find they are consciously
misrepresenting facts. It devalues the charge, making it less likely people
will pay attention when a genuine McCarthy or Hitler returns. It is, though,
such fun to “cry wolf” and watch the scurrying for shelter.

* * * * *

From: Anthony LewisDate:
5/8/98Time: 1:46:10 PM

Dear Jude:

I enjoyed your open memo, and thanks for
sending it to me. Here is a quick reply.

Prisoners' telephone conversations are
not private from the prison authorities, as you say. But that is the limit. It
is against strict regulations of the Federal Bureau of Prison, and against the
Privacy Act, to disclose the record of the conversations to outsiders. That is
not just the law but an essential guaranty of due process and human dignity
that should be meaningful to conservatives especially. Fidel Castro used to
have trials in a football stadium, with the crowd shouting "Guilty!" Our
system provides that guilt be determined by a carefully-controlled legal
process: In court, not by public opinion.

If Mr. Hubbell's conversations contained
any evidence of criminality, that evidence should have been used in a criminal
proceeding -- or perhaps still will be. I do not want Congressional
committees asking the public to adjudicate guilt or innocence on the basis of
"evidence" that has not been through the legal process to determine its
reliability and materiality.

As for the "editing," if you believe Dan
Burton "culled these few sentences out innocently," you can believe anything.

Cheers, Tony.

From: Jude WanniskiDate:
5/8/98Time: 2:12:01 PM

I understand and appreciate concerns about being "tried
in the press" instead of due process. I took up the defense of Michael Milken
after I observed the Wall Street Journal news columns running charges against
him that were not attributed to the US Attorney's office, from whence they had
been leaked. By the time Milken had his day in court, nobody in the country,
including almost everyone at the NYTimes, believed he was an evil man who
deserved what he got. In the same vein, I have defended Louis Farrakhan, who
has been routinely vilified by the Anti-Defamation League, and lynched a
hundred times, with no way to fight back, except for a rare interview on a
Sunday talk show. Demonizing someone in the press before asking judge and jury
to look at him without prejudice is a hard thing to do.

As I wrote in my memo to you, my defense of Burton was that I
did not see the "slime" and "depths of degradation" which you saw, when as I
recall you never saw any slime or depths of degradation in the demonization of
Milken or Farrakhan. (I once told Milken he was the most demonized Jew in
America, Farrakhan the most demonized black.) Burton had to be "innocent" in
his editing because he knew he was not concealing anything from Hubbell's
defenders. Imagine the public is the judge, and I am out "to get" Clinton and
you are his defense lawyer. We stand in the court of law. I have the
transcript of the Hubbell conversation in front of me, and so do you. I ask
the judge to hear an edited version of what he said, in order to elevate that
part I want the judge to hear. Yet I know, you have the transcript in front of
you. If you were to object that I didn't include what you wanted me to
include, you could do so. The judge -- the public -- would
immediately get the full transcript. This is what Burton did, and before you
could whistle Dixie, the President's defenders were screaming about the
"exculpatory" passage edited out.

The reply to my query you offer does make sense if Burton did
in fact break the law in making public the tapes. Yet I've heard nobody say he
broke any law. Just that he should have been nice and not done so. What I mean
to say, Tony, is that I still don't see how your high-decibel fulmination
about slime and degradation fits what actually happened.